Reichert: “dirty politics” is in the (blind) eye of the beholder

Freshman GOP Rep. Dave Reichert has a well-earned reputation for being hot-headed and thin-skinned. But apparently, he’s also a hypocrite.

For example, remember that candidates forum back in 2004, in which Reichert dramatically walked out, whining that his Republican primary opponents (Luke Esser and Diane Tebelius) were playing “dirty politics”…?

“I’m disappointed that there are a couple of people who are on this stage with me today that decided that it’s more important to mislead and misinform the public, and as we refer to the dirty politics across the country and in our community and in our state, I, for one, am sick and tired of it.”

Reichert said that he wanted to run a clean campaign and that he has been doing so since he began campaigning.

[…]

[Bruce] Boram, Reichert’s spokesman, said the accusations were “cheap shots” and the sheriff wanted no part in that type of debate.

Funny thing is, at the same time Boram was defending his client’s public hissy fit, he was also preparing to launch some dirty politics of his own. It was Boram, in case you forgot, who was the local operative behind the US Chamber of Commerce’s unprecedented, multi-million dollar smear campaign against Deborah Senn in the Democratic primary for state Attorney General. It was Boram who refused to reveal the source of the money and who initially refused to comply with WA’s public disclosure laws.

When asked by KING-5 news if there was “any room for Bruce Boram” in a campaign that has disavowed “dirty politics,” Reichert said: “He and I are going to have a talk today to see where we go from here.”

Wait a second. I thought Reichert dumped Boram back in 2004 because somebody had to stand up to dirty politics? Perhaps Roll Call simply got it wrong? So I checked Reichert’s 2005 expenditures, and what did I find? 19 expenditures totaling over $90,000 to Boram and his company Catalyst Consulting… by far Reichert’s largest vendor thus far.

Um… apparently, Boram was too dirty for Reichert’s campaign back in the fall of 2004, but somehow managed to clean himself up by April of 2005. And he’s been on the payroll ever since.

So I’m not exactly sure what message I’m supposed to take away from this. Was Boram’s staged “resignation” merely a disingenuous act of political expedience? (You know… a lie.) Or has Congressman Reichert become so indoctrinated in the culture of Republican Party politics, that, dirty politics… eh… not such a big deal anymore?

Or perhaps there’s another answer. Perhaps Reichert is so disengaged from his campaign and so hands-off its operations, that he doesn’t really know or care about the personal and professional behavior of the people running it? You know, the way he didn’t really seem to care about the mismanagement of the Sheriff’s office during his tenure there, or the abusive behavior of many of his deputies? Or the way he doesn’t seem to care about the corruption rampant in the Republican controlled Congress?

I dunno… either way it looks like a pattern to me. Though, I wouldn’t want to be one to cast aspersions.

Looks like we got a republican acting like republicans do. Lying, cheating and generally proving to be dishonest. No news there. But there is a part of this story that Darcy better pay attention to – these thugs in the republican cabal will do ANYFUCKING THING to get elected. I guarantee you there’s no lie they won’t tell, there’s no low to which they won’t stoop. So if a Dem’s gonna win, Democrats will have to stop worrying about clean campaigns and get dirty fast. The public SAYS it wants a clean campaign and then promptly falls for the ROVEIAN bullshit machine that turns war heros missing arms and legs into cowards while draft dodging AWOL cowards occupy the White House. There are plenty of rumors about Sheriff Davie’s temper and his wife. I bet we could uncover some real dirt there and we need to get our shovels out right NOW! Let’s dig up what we can on this CHENEY loving, BUSH ass-sucking right wing stoog and get him gone.

Like I said in a previous post: “How could employing Bruce Boram not be considered a political liability for the Reichert campaign? I gotta figure that ones going to come back to haunt Reichert.”http://www.horsesass.org/index.php?p=1529 Boram is poison, plain and simple. He’s an angry little wart covered man, lacking in even the simplest social graces, who hides in the shadows. And he represents yet another dumb move on Reichert’s part. Reichert is simply out of his depth on this stuff.

In sharp contrast to the two Darcy Burner/MANAGER articles appearing in our local dailies for April 19, 2006, both the Seattle Times and Seattle P-I were calling Burner a former Microsoft EXECUTIVE as recently as April 5, 2006:

Obviously, you have to wonder what provisions the Burners are making to take care of their three year old son Henry, who was born in January 2003.

Michael works long hours as a hot-shot MANAGER at Microsoft. He must make pretty good money to support their fancy digs on Lake Ames.

Darcy did spend a little time with Henry immediately after he was born. But then she went back to her job as a hot-shot Microsoft MANAGER, until she left for UW law school in September 2004. Then immediately after finishing her first year, she started her campaign for Congress on June 15, 2005.

Most day cares require you to pick your child up by 6:00 p.m. So there is a decent possibility that the Burners are using a nanny to care for Michael. And if that is the case, there is a decent possibility that the nanny is an illegal alien. And if that is the case, there is a decent possibility that the Burners are not paying social security and other required taxes on their nanny.

Mind you, all of this is merely a POSSIBILITY. But we have another six and a half months before the election. Where there is smoke, there is fire. When a SHARK smells blood, they tend to go into a frenzy and go for the kill.

Lots of otherwise decent folks have had their political plans derailed over nanny problems. The twin illegalities of (1) hiring an illegal alien and (2) not paying their social security tax.

This included Bill Clinton’s first two proposed nominees for U.S. Attorney General in 19933 and George W. Bush’s first proposed nominee for U.S. Secretary of Labor in 2001.

So you can bet that someone is going to be digging for dirt on Darcy …

But, the left has trashed him so badly that I’m not sure it matters. Just look how goldy will continue to use his name as a means to smear reichert. Truth is no longer an issue, it is all a matter of whether you can destroy someone’s name, and then use it to destroy the next target.

This isn’t the same as someone fluffing their resume and dodging questions. Reichert may have someone rough-and-tumble as manager, but darcy’s manager just seems to be incompetent.

Richard – the nanny thing could end up being a point in darcy’s favor. See the case about the painters fired for leaving work early to attend the illegal alien rally? They are illegals, and the powers-that-be in the area forced the guy to hire them back. There is something very wrong with this picture.

I’m betting if her nanny comes up illegal, the left will paint this as an example of her humanity and community service. Since we haven’t’ heard any other community service that she has actually done, besides being the figure-head leader of a msft group, maybe this will have to do.

We have allowed a double standard to be impoised on us by the left ; one set of rules for Republican Whites and another set of rules for Democrat Blacks. Here is the perfect example with McKinney, she passes a security check point at the Capital Bldg, does not have her I.D. on, fails to identify herself and when confronted by the security agent, assaults him and then blames the security guard for not reckonizing her.

If this had been a Republican, the Republican would have been forced to resign from office.

Instead we have had to watch the race mongers come to McKinney’s defence and say the it is about race; she is black and the security person is white, therefore it is a carry over of whites mistreating blacks.

When will blacks accept responsibilty for their own errors of judgements when will they step up to the plate and say if was my fault and I deserve the punishment that I will get??

Gees Richard, when are going to start digging through the court database on me?

You and Stefan go at it, because when I start going after Reichert (and trust me… this post was not the start of it), your petty, meanspirited, bullshit will have nicely paved the way for the heaping piles of muck I’ll be flinging.

October 2003 sheriff and politician Dave Reichert was riding high, his office was preparing to announce Green River Killer Gary Ridgway’s upcoming guilty plea, not just a feather in the Seriff’s cap — more like the like the fletching on a bulls eye arrow. Then Reichert got word that two of his deputies and another cop had been accused of roughing up an informant.

What to do, what to do? Well, one would like to believe that the deputies boss would back his men, if possible. It now appears that it was more than possible, since the prosecutor dropped all the charges, but Dave threw his men over for political gain.

In this situation, there two police officers (one Des Moines cop and one KC deputy) ON THE SCENE who were EYEWITNESSES and testified that the three other officers (two KC deputies and one Des Moines cop) had roughed up and improperly detained the informant.

In spite of all this, a King County jury voted 8 to 4 in favor of ACQUITTAL of the three accused law enforcement officers.

Reichert did suspend the two KC deputies for 20 days after the trial. Had they been convicted, he would have probably fired them.

But for liberal Democrats, the details don’t matter. Blame Reichert no matter what. If he didn’t discipline someone, he was coddling bad cops. If he did discipline someone, he was going overboard for political reasons.

Thanks to Ted Stevens, “Mikey likes It” McGavick has pulled so much of the Big Money attention in Washington state, that Reichert has had to go bargain hunting. And Bruce Boram is what he’s come up with.If he stays he’ll go low – both because its cheaper and because its what he does. I haven’t seen such a perfect example of blowing a constituency sinch Slade’s last campaign. A truly priceless lesson made sweeter since it’s guys like John Stanton who are paying for it.

Rujax, first off, you have no idea what my religious leanings are. I have never stated them here, so why make up stuff?

Second, the article sited says nothing about abortions. Again, made up stuff.

Delay was a hard-ball leader, who I am not sorry to see leave. He put power ahead of ethics, and hurt the repub cause. But Reid and Pelosi have done similar things to stay in power at the expense of their ethics. Reid accepted money and favors from Abramoff, but I don’t see that talked about here. And Pelosi’s family business is very much anti-union.

None of this is illegal, or at least no indictments have been brought against any of these players. Most of the charges against delay have been thrown out of court, because they were the work of a political hack. But that is life in the fast lane.

In May 2005, the House of Representatives approved a spending bill that allowed the Energy Department to consider storing spent nuclear fuel at Hanford. Jay Inslee unsuccessfully tried to strip the offending language from the measure, but three Republicans from Washington – Cathy McMorris, Doc Hastings and the self-styled environment friendly Dave Reichert – didn’t join in voting for the amendment.

If Dave is so green, why does he fall in line with the GOP on a issue of great importance to Washington State? Does he only vary from McMorris and Hastings when the heat is off?

State Democratic Party Chair Dwight Pelz has called on Dave Reichert to return campaign contributions he’s received from Tom DeLay’s PAC. Reichert has accepted $20,000 in tainted money from DeLay and his political action committees, and Reichert has voted with DeLay 97 percent of the time.

“From his tenure as King County Sheriff to his time now as a member of Congress, Dave Reichert has repeatedly demonstrated a pattern of turning a blind eye to bad behavior,” said Pelz. “Tom DeLay’s downfall should cause Reichert to take a good look at his own prospects for reelection this November. The people of the 8th district want honest leadership and reform, not Republican yes-men who take tainted money from the likes of DeLay.”

In October 2004, Dave Reichert invited Tom DeLay to a closed-door fund-raiser in the 8th Congressional District? The Democrats asked rhetorically. “Who does Dave Reichert want to represent – Tom DeLay’s conservative, win-at-all-costs wing of the Republican Party or the independent voters of the 8th Congressional District?”

Richard Pope @ 17 says:When a SHARK smells blood, they tend to go into a frenzy and go for the kill. Well if a speeding ticket is like a drop of blood in the water, then Bruce Boram is like a pair of JCH’s blood soaked adult diapers. Do you even know who you are defending?

Yeah, public service is a tough racket. Sometimes you have to decide to do the right thing. Sue Rahr, after an internal hearing where the detectives testified, in a July 2004 e-mail to her staff said she had changed her mind about their guilt after hearing their stories.

But, by then, Dave was busy running for Congress. What did he care about the careers he ruined.

Richard @17, Wow, that was almost as extensive of your analysis of the implications of Burner getting low grades at law school. In that one your initial premise was incorrect, but hey why let that stop you from making things up and then analysing them.

Here is one, what if Richard Pope is actually the green river killer? What would that imply about his suitability for office? Oh, Richard Pope has not yet told us where he was last time a bank got robbed, is that a coincidence?

Has Richard ever owned a dog? How did that dog die? Why were the cops not called about abuse of that dog, I smell a coverup. So much for ‘family values’.

Realize these are only possibilities.

Incidently, what exactly is the difference between a manager and an executive. Last I checked there is a difference when you are discussing the structure of a company with regard to the stocks, but when you are talking about pay and whether someone is exempt or non-exempt they are the same catagory, so what definition are you using? In the tech industry, most people consider managers to be executives. I have been in this industry for more than a decade, and that attitude is a legacy from the dot com bubble.

Using your light and fast whichever-description-I-want attitude, you are not a man. I am sure I can find a manhood ritual of one sort or another you’ve not participated in, so you are not a man, you’re a child. If you are going to use a technical definition instead of a standard one, you need to include that fact and the definition each time you make the claim, or you are just talking shit.

Oh I see, when someone does something wrong the blame should go to the person who points it out? You think that the crime problem in this country is simply because so many people come forward and report them, right?

You are the idiot who complained about the lack of information when it was right there. And fuck me for pointing it out?

In 1984, Rebecca Guay came to police to say that she had been assaulted two years prior by a man who tried to kill her with a chokehold. Guay knew the assailant’s place of employment (he had shown her an identification card), and she picked him out of a book of photos. She identified Gary Ridgeway.

At that time, the top cop on the Green River investigation was Dave Reichert. Ridgway had the sheer gall to admit having “dated” Guay and even choking her.

But by then, Guay no longer wanted to pursue charges. She became the only known survivor of the Green River Killer

“Did she ever retract her lie about being a executive? Commentby righton— 4/19/06@ 6:36 am”

Did you ever retract your lie about Darcy not being an executive? Get a fucking dictionary! Look up the word “executive” — see what it means. I’m not gonna do it for you. I’m not your fucking research assistant! I’m a fucking bunny.

Gee, I was hoping Stefan would post in this thread — so I could ask him why he’s keeping all the money for himself instead of sharing it with the generous donors to his “legal action fund” who paid for the lawsuit!

The top command made a plan to arrest officers Alvarez and Keller. They called the officers in for duty and immediately handcuffed them.

Most fourth-degree assault suspects are booked and released, but the officers were jailed for three days, supposedly to protect Winchester. Keller thinks it was because “we pretty much stomped on Reichert’s fire” by taking Winchester to the Green River, “bad luck on our part.”

Bob Keppel, the lead detective in the Ted Bundy murder case, will testify that Sue Rahr and Dave Reichert ordered the October 2003 arrest of deputies George Alvarez and James Keller without probable cause, said Reba Weiss, the attorney representing the deputies.

Investigators didn’t find or interview Michael Winchester, the man who was supposedly beaten, until after Keller and Alvarez were arrested. He said he had been assaulted and threatened with drowning. Winchester has a long criminal record, and he admitted in the criminal trial that he had lied about one aspect of the case.

It’s tough to get convictions when your witness admits to lying.

But the county has spent $75,000, so far, defending the four Sheriffs Department officials and the case has barely begun. The county spent $800,000 defending Alvarez and Keller.

Weiss said she intends to show that the two deputies were arrested as a show by Reichert when his department was dealing behind the scenes with other embarrassing cases that were exposed in a recent Seattle P-I investigation, “Conduct Unbecoming.”

“Underneath the surface were the Pat Covey and the Dan Ring cases, the other bad cops they were cutting deals with. This was a way of covering up the real bad stuff that was going on,” she said.

Keller and Alvarez were assigned to a gang enforcement unit that some weeks prior had shut down a drug operation in Maple Valley. During the operation some of the gang members who were resisting arrest (by shooting at the police) were killed by return fire. Family members of those killed had sworn revenge against the police, including Alvarez and Keller, and were seeking to target their families. Keller and Alvarez learned of the threats and had reason to believe that their informant, Michael Winchester, was cooperating with gang members in gathering information about the officers and their families. Officers like Alvarez and Keller, who engage in direct anti-gang enforcement are not like most cops. They keep strange hours, socialize with scum, they work-out like crazy, shave their heads, get neck tattos, and carry giant guns with lots of ammo. They believe that is what it takes to be successful in their job, and I’m in no position to doubt them. Most cops understandably prefer to avoid this kind of work. Beyond the obvious risks of this kind of assignment, is the risk that they may eventually adopt the street tactics of those they seek to arrest. Therefor, such officers are often re-assigned to other duties after a period of time. Keller and Alvarez had been very successful in their work, and for that reason were allowed to continue in that assignment for too long. Yet another poor management decision by Team Green River. None of this excuses Keller and Alvarez, but it puts it in context and it helps explain why the Sherrif’s Guild still supports them. Lazy traffic cops who feel up drunken teenagers should be fired and sent to jail. But under the sound management of Team Green River they get re-assigned (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/.....lla15.html). Heroes who get in over their heads and cross a line out of fear and frustration should be disciplined, maybe even fired. But when Reichert and Maleng put their heads together, they decide to arrest and charge them with felonies before they even interview the victim. It’s no surprise the jury couldn’t understand why the arrests were made or the charges brought.

So why did four members of the jury believe beyond a reasonable doubt that all three officers were guilty of felony false imprisonment and that two of the three were guilty of misdemeanor assault? I am sure those four jurors understood why the charges had been brought.

According to Norm Dicks in a recent interview, the House is now in session for only about a day and a half a week. The way the Repubs run things, they get to vote the way their party leaders tell them to on a pile of bills written by GOP staff hacks, then they genuflect at a portrait of Ronald Reagan, line up to lick DeLay’s boots (you think Hastert’s really running things?) and everyone goes home.

From that description, it would seem that the Burners would have far more time to spend with their new kid. Of course, lots of us are hoping to change all that, and put both legislative bodies back to work repairing the last six years’ worth of damage.

It is really tough to charge a law enforcement officer with a crime committed while in the line of duty.

For starters, if the officer is acquitted (or even not convicted, as is technically the result of an 8-4 hung jury), the taxpayers are required to reimburse the officer for every penny of their legal defense costs.

In such situations, the defense lawyers will pad the hell out of their bill — which explains the $800,000 cost (over a quarter million dollars each( for defending three defendants. That is more than 100 times the normal cost, for example, of providing public defense to an indigent person charged with a felony. And probably at least 10 times the cost of a normal high-end private defense of such a case where the defendant is wealthy and can really afford to pay lawyers.

The only thing that can be said with certainty — if Dave Reichert hadn’t done something about Alvarez and Keller, liberal Democrats would be accusing him of coddling police brutality.

You sort of have to do something when two police officers (one KC deputy and one Des Moines cop) are eyewitnesses, and say that a civilian was brutalized and illegally restrained by their fellow officers.

We can count on Clownstein and his fellow travelers trying to spoon feed this kind of crap to the media in the last few weeks before the November election.

Geez Richard, you make me thank the lawd you don’t work for the KCPA. To convict you have to convince ALL NINE. But you’re the lawyer so you tell us: If five of your jurors vote to acquit, and a few of those actually go to the media to express their frustration about the charges even being brought, are you using your time and the taxpayers money wisely?

Why didn’t you get a degree while pursuing graduate studies at the Univ. of Tennessee? Why did you list this on your early candidate questionaires, but it mysteriously is not present on other postings of your qualifications? Perhaps you had to leave town because…. (gee, imagine the POSSIBILITIES!!!!)

Your post implying a “nanny problem”, composed of nothing but inuendo, was contemptable. You really should be ashamed of yourself for that one. Although I don’t agree with you politically, I had previously given you some credit for posting facts, but obviously I can no longer do that.

“This right wing whining about the politics of personal destruction is laughable. We warned you guys that our learning curve, when motivated, is pretty quick.”

The only thing wrong with liberals practicing the politics of personal destruction is we’re not doing enough of it, and we’re not vicious enough. Hey! Republicans do it, so why shouldn’t we? It works! That’s why they do it. Why should Republicans have a monopoly on smearing the opposition??? Republicans want a monopoly on every fucking thing! Greedy bastards …

They didn’t have to find or interview Winchester. “Probable cause” is a very low threshold, far less than “beyond a reasonable doubt” or even “more likely true than not.” All they needed was some reason to believe an illegal assault occurred.

Poor Tom DeLay. He conspired to violate Texas election laws by funneling corporate money into texas campaigns, but Texas conveniently did not make such conspiracy to violate their laws illegal in a timely enough fashion. Saintly Tom. Perhaps Pope Benedict will beatify him.

“Reid accepted money and favors from Abramoff, but I don’t see that talked about here.”

It’s “not talked about here” because YOU’RE LYING. Harry Reid never received a penny from Jack Abramoff, a point that has been not only made endlessly in here, but also backed up with links to the entities who track such things that prove it decisively.

Harry Reid DID receive some contributions from various entities (mostly a few Indian tribes) who were coincidentlly also stupid anough to hire Jack Abramoff to lobby for them. But Abramoff never steered a red cent of his clients’ money to ANY Democrat, including Reid. You see, Janet, Jack was a REPUBLICAN political operative, whose job it was (in part) to get next to traditional Democratic contributors like Indian tribes and steer their money to Republicans instead. He did that pretty well. Indian tribes don’t need lobbyists to persuade them to contribute to Democats because Democrats support their interests and don’t hold them in contempt, but they need lying Republicans to convince them to give to the GOP.

So because you insist upon hewing to your GOP talking point on Reid while ignoring both the facts and the many times you have been corrected with volumes of documentation, you’re….simply…lying.

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